Spotify is a global music streaming service, which has now spread across 65 different countries (Spotify, 2018), first founded in Sweden by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon (Spotify, 2018). Spotify has grown to one of the biggest streaming services worldwide, housing more the 2 million artists (Quora, 2018) and being valued at over $23 billion (BBC, 2018). Spotify differs from previous streaming services such as Napster through the legalities of the business, as Spotify “allow users access to millions of tracks from any web-connected computer [or portable mobile devices] legally and free of charge” (Swanson, 2013). A major key to the success of Spotify is their groundbreaking business model which allowed them to capitalise on the digitisation of music. Digitisation is “The process by which images, sounds, and information get transformed into bytes of information that can move fluidly across media platforms and be easily reconfigured in different contexts.” (Jenkins, 2006, p.283).

 

Kim mentions an extremely relevant ‘Spotify effect’ (2018); consumers demand an infinite library that functions at the “intersection of advertising, technology, music, and finance” (Kim, 2018), which is where streaming services like Spotify and Apple music oligopolise the market. This Spotify effect was only possible through the advancements of web 2.0 technologies, improvements in broadband technology, and surge in mobile phone storage capabilities; these advancements allowed the capitalisation of the digital music market by Spotify.

Spotify is an application that is available on desktop computers, mobile devices and tablets, giving its users access to music, podcasts and audiobooks. Its free version is restricted with advertisements played while listening, a limit of 3 skips per hour, playlists can only be played on shuffle, and the user can only listen with internet access. The premium account offers streaming across all devices (including car play), gives the user unlimited skips, the ability to download music so it can be played while offline, and can start at any point in the playlist. Spotify also offers a 60-day free trial period, which gives the user access to Spotify Premium.

 

Spotify offers several features across all its platforms; these features include the ability to (Casey, 2017);

• stream music, podcasts and audiobook

• make, share and follow playlists with the Spotify community, which can be accessed by any user (unless playlist is made private)

• Spotify radio which is where Spotify’s algorithm picks songs based off a selected song, album, artist or playlist and allows users to like or dislike songs so Spotify can get to better know your taste in music

• Recommendations, Spotify’s looks at what music you’ve recently listened to and offers recommendations of music that
  is of a similar genre and beat

• Playlists, Spotify create custom playlists for each individual users, which is a compilation of music that you have already listened to and music which is similar, these are delivered to your home page, called your Discover Weekly Playlist, Radar Release which is a collection of new song which the algorithm thinks you like and your Daily Mix Playlist which is your favourite songs in 6 different playlists which are broken down into similar genres

• Follow friends, Spotify allows users to follow their friends and see what they are listening too as well as follow their playlists

 

These days Spotify has grown into a world renown stream service, servicing over 157 million active users, 83 million of which are paid subscribers, contributing $13bn (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, 2018) to rights holders since its initial launch in 2008.